Paper Money (23 page)

never shed tears. That was how they found out he was different, when he

was a baby: he used to hurt himself and not cry.

Ma sometimes said: "He do feel things, but he don't never show it."

Pa used to say that Ma got upset often enough for two, anyway.

When really awful things happened, like the rat joke that Snowy and

Tubby played, Billy found he got all boiled up inside, and he wanted to

do something drastic, like scream--but it just never happened.

He had killed the rat, and that had helped. He had held it with one

hand, and with the other banged it on the head with a brick until it

stopped wriggling.

He would do something like that to Tony Cox It occurred to him that Tony

was bigger than a rat--indeed, bigger than Billy. That baffled him,-> so

he put it out of his mind.

He stopped at the end of a street. The corner house had a shop

downstairs--one of the old shops, where they sold lots of things. Billy

knew the owner's daughter, a pretty girl with long hair called Sharon. A

couple of years ago she let him feel her tits, but then she ran away

from him and would not speak to him anymore. For days afterward he had

thought of nothing else but the small round mounds under her blouse, and

the way he felt when he touched them. Eventually he had realized that

the experience- was one of those nice things that never happen twice.

He went into the shop. Sharon's mother was behind the counter, wearing

candy-striped nylon overalls. She did not recognize Billy.

He smiled and said: "Hello."

"Can I help you?" She was uneasy.

Billy said: "How's Sharon?"

"Fine thanks. She's out at the moment. Do you know her?"

"Yes." Billy looked around the shop, at the assortment of food,

hardware, books, fancy goods, tobacco, and confectionery. He wanted to

say, She let me feel her tits once, but he knew that would not be right.

"I used to play with her."

It seemed to be the answer the woman wanted: she looked relieved. She

smiled, and Billy saw that her teeth were brown-stained, like his

father's. She said: "Can I serve you with something?" There was a

clatter of shoes on stairs, and Sharon came into the shop from the door

behind the counter. Billy was surprised: she looked much older. Her hair

was short, and her tits were quite big, wobbling under a T-shirt.

She had long legs in tight jeans. She called: "Bye, Mum." She was

rushing out.

Billy said: "Hello, Sharon!"

She stopped and stared at him. Recognition flickered in her face. "Oh,

hi, Billy. Can't stop." Then she was gone.

Her mother looked embarrassed. "I'm sorry-I forgot she was upstairs

still-"

"It's all right. I forget a lot of things."

"Well, can I serve you with something?" the woman repeated.

"I want a knife."

It had popped into Billy's head from nowhere, but he knew straight away

that it was right. There was no point in banging a strong man like Tony

Cox on the head with a stone--he would just hit you back. So you had to

knife him in the back, like an Indian.

"For yourself, or your mother?"

"What's it for?"

Billy knew he shouldn't tell her that. He frowned, and said: "Cutting

things. String, and that."

"Oh." The woman reached into the window display, and pulled out a knife

in a sheath, like Boy Scouts had.

Billy took all the money out of his trouser pocket.

Money was something he was not good about-he always let the shopkeeper

take however much was needed.

Sharon's mother looked and said: "But you've only got eight pence."

"Is it enough?" She sighed. "No, I'm sorry."

"Well, can I have some bubblegum, then?"

The woman put the knife back in the window and took a packet of gum from

a shelf. "Six pence

Billy offered his handful of money, and the woman took some coins.

"Thanks," Billy said. He went out into the street and opened the packet.

He liked to put it all in his mouth at once. He walked on, chewing with

enjoyment. For the moment, he had forgotten where he was going.

He stopped to watch some men digging a hole in the pavement. The tops of

their heads were level with Billy's feet. He saw, with interest, that

the wall of the trench changed color as it went down. First there was

the pavement, then some black stuff like tar, then loose brown earth,

then wet clay. In the bottom lay a pipe made of clean new concrete. Why

did they put pipes under the pavement? Billy had no idea. He leaned over

and said: "Why are you putting a pipe under the pavement?" A workman

looked up at him and said: "We're hiding it from the Russians."

"Oh." Billy nodded, as if he understood. After a moment he moved on.

He felt hungry, but there was something he had to do before he went home

for lunch. Lunch?

He had eaten a packet of biscuits because Pa was up the hospital. That

had something to do with why he was here in Bethnal Green, but he could

not quite make the connection.

He turned a corner, looked at the road name on a sign tacked high up on

a wall, and saw that he was in Quill Street. Now he remembered. This was

where Tony Cox lived at number nineteen.

He would knock on the door No He didn't know why, but he felt sure he

ought to creep in by the back door. There was a lane behind the terrace.

Billy walked along it until he came to the back of Tony's house.

All the taste was gone from his bubblegum, so he took it out of his

mouth and threw it away before quietly unlatching the back gate and

walking stealthily in.

TONY COX drove slowly along the rutted mud track, out of consideration

for his own comfort rather than for the owner of the "borrowed" car.

The lane, which had no name, led from a B-road to a farmhouse with a

barn. The barn, the empty, dilapidated house, and the acre of infertile

land surrounding them, were owned by a company called Land Development

Ltd.; which was in turn owned by a compulsive gambler who owed Tony Cox

a lot of money. The barn was occasionally used to store job lots of

fire-damaged goods bought at rock-bottom prices, so it was not unusual

for a van and a car to draw up in the farmyard.

The five-bar gate at the end of the lane was open, and Tony drove in.

There was no sign of the blue van, but Jesse was leaning against the

farmhouse wall, smoking a cigarette. He came across to open the car door

for Tony.

"It haven't gone smooth, Tony," he said immediately.

Tony got out of the car. "Is the money here?

"In the van." Jesse jerked his head toward the barn. "But it never went

smooth."

"Let's get inside--it's too hot out here." Tony heaved the barn door

open and stepped in. Jesse followed him. A quantity of packing cases

occupied one third of the floor area. Tony read the labels on a couple:

they contained surplus Forces uniforms and coats. The blue van stood

opposite the door. Tony noticed that trade plates had been tied over the

original license plates with string.

"What have you been playing at?" he asked incredulously.

"Oh, blimey, Tony, wait till you hear what I've had to do."

"Well bloody tell me then!"

"Well, I had a prang, see--nothing much, just a little bump. But the

geezer gets out of his car and wants to call the police. So I pisses

off, don't I. But he stands in the way and I hits him."

Tony cursed softly.

Now fear showed in Jesse's face. "Well, I knew the law would be looking

for me, didn't I. So I stops at this garage, goes round the back to the

khasi, and nicks a set of trade plates and these overalls."

He nodded eagerly, as if to lend his own approval to his actions. "Then

I come on here."

Tony stared at him in amazement, then burst out laughing. "You mad

bastard!" he chuckled.

Jesse looked relieved. "I done the best thing for it, though, didn't I?"

Tony's laughter subsided. "You mad bastard," he repeated. "Here you are,

with a fortune in hot money in the van, and you stop"-his chest heaved,

and he wheezed with renewed laughter' you stop at a garage and nick a

pair of overalls!" Jesse smiled too, not from amusement but out of the

pleasure of a fear removed. Then he became serious again. "There is

proper bad news, though."

"Gorblimey, what else?"

"The van driver tried to be a hero."

"You never killed him?" Tony said anxiously.

"No, just knocked him on the head. But Jacko's shooter went off in the

fracas"-he pronounced it frackars--and Deaf Willie got hit. In the boat

race.

He's bad, Tone."

"Oh, balls." Tony sat down suddenly on an old three legged stool.

"Oh, poor old Willie. Did they take him up the hospital, did they?"

Jesse nodded. "That's why Jacko's not here.

He's took him. Whether he got there alive ..."

"That bad?"

Jesse nodded.

"Oh, balls." He was silent for a while. "He don't get no luck, Deaf

Willie. The one ear's gone already, and his boy's a mental case, and his

wife looks like Henry Cooper--and now this." He clicked his tongue in

sorrow. "We'll give him a double share, but it won't mend his head." He

got up.

Jesse opened the van, relieved that he had managed to convey the bad

news without suffering Tony's wrath.

Tony rubbed his hands together. "Right, let's have a look at what we

got."

There were nine gray steel chests in the back of the van. They looked

like squat metal suitcases, each with handles at both ends, each secured

by a double lock. They were heavy. The two men unloaded them, one by

one, and lined them up in the center of the- barn. Tony looked at them

greedily. His expression showed an almost sensual pleasure. He said:

"It's like Ali Baba and the forty bloody thieves, mate."

Jesse was taking plastic explosive, wires and detonators out of a duffel

bag in a corner of the barn. "I wish Willie was here to do the

bang-bangs."

Tony said: "I wish he was here, full stop."

Jesse prepared to blow open the chests. He stuck the jellylike explosive

all around the locks, attached detonators and wires, and connected each

tiny bomb to the plunger-type trigger. Watching him, Tony said: "You

seem to know what you're doing."

"I've seen Willie do it often enough." He grinned.

"Maybe I can become the firm's peter man-" "Willie ain't dead," Tony

gruffly.

"Not so far as we know."

Jesse picked up the trigger and, trailing wires, took it outside. Tony

followed him.

Tony said: "Drive the van outside, in case of the petrol going up, know

what I mean?"

"There's no danger--"

"You've never done a peter before, and I'm not taking the risk."

"Okay." Jesse closed the rear doors and backed the van into the

farmyard. Then he opened the bonnet and used crocodile clips to connect

the trigger with the van's battery.

He said: "Hold your breath," and pressed the plunger.

There was a muffled bang.

The two men went back inside. The chests stood in line with their tops

hanging open at odd, twisted angles.

"You done a good job," Tony said.

The chests were neatly and tightly packed. The bundles of notes were

stacked twenty across, ten wide, and five deep: one thousand bundles per

chest. Each bundle contained one hundred notes.

That made one hundred thousand notes per chest.

The first six chests contained ten-shilling notes, obsolete and

worthless.

Tony said: "Jesus H. Christ."

The next contained oncers, but it was not quite full. Tony counted eight

hundred bundles. The last chest but one also contained one-pound notes,

and it was full. Tony said: "That's better. Just about right."

The last chest was packed solid with tenners.

Tony muttered: ."Gawd help us."

Jesse's eyes were wide. "How much-is it, Tony?"

"One million, one hundred and eighty thousand pounds sterling, my son."

Jesse gave a whoop of delight. "We're rich! We're lousy with it!"

Tony's face was somber. "I suppose we could burn all the tenners."